SPEA professor wins award

IU professor Lisa Bingham was presented the Willoughby Abner award this summer in honor of her extensive research in employment relations and her ability to educate practitioners about her research. Bingham is a Keller-Runden professor of public service at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and is the director and co-founder of the Indiana Conflict Resolution Institute at IU. \nThis award, presented by the Association for Conflict Resolution, recognized the research Bingham has collected and published in her longitudinal study of the U.S. Postal Service and specifically the effects of the REDRESS program.\n"It was a challenge to do research that was responsive to people in the real world specifically focusing on content and timing," Bingham said. "And it was wonderful to be acknowledged by a mediation community by making the research useful and accessible for them. It was a joyous moment. I got a standing ovation from 1,000 mediators." \nThis award is not given out every year. Hugh Jascourt, who funded the Abner award and is the former executive director of Public Employment Relations Institute, said that in order to be eligible for this award one must meet certain criteria.\n"They did quality research, writing and did something in affirmative ways, and the practitioners are award for it," Jascourt said. \nThe REDRESS program, which Bingham is researching, was established in 1994 and is a governmental program formed to mediate discrimination strictly in the Postal Service with the help of a third party mediator. Bingham has studied this program in the Postal Service since its founding.\n"Conflict resolution as a field of academic inquiry has been growing across the country," Bingham said, adding that it was critical to get this program going because there was a gap in this area of research. \nJascourt said Bingham has published her findings in an impressively practical way. \n"She made every effort possible to get her research into publications and to other users as well," he said.\nThe results Bingham found showed a high level of satisfaction with the REDRESS program and a significant decrease in the amount of Equal Employment Opportunity complaints filed. \n"My goal was to build a data collection so that researchers have something to look at. The hardest part is getting good quality field data," she said. \nOnce she chose the Postal Service as her research focus, she formulated a hypothesis. \n"This was the weirdest research experience I have ever had because I predicted the results and it happened," she said.\nBingham was able to identify the problems between the postal workers and their supervisors through an interview. The supervisor said it was a typical situation for the worker to come to him with a grievance. The supervisor, disagreeing with the grievance, would interrupt the worker. \nThis would then escalate the argument into a cycle of screaming. Then the worker could file an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint but statistics show that only half of the EEO complaints become administrative complaints, thus leaving a whole bunch of-workers unhappy, dissatisfied and unproductive. This causes a whole slew of negative events that do not get resolved, she said.\nWith the REDRESS program, the focus of the solution is different. Bingham said that in conflict-resolution the conflicting people are able to talk about their interests and their concerns instead of putting emphasis on who has broken the law or not. Therefore, skills such as active listening and tolerance are developed. \n"These people are able to develop skills that they can take back to the workroom floor," Bingham said. "With time it can change the culture of the organization into one that is less confrontational and more collaborative."\nIn addition to her extensive research, she has also published over twenty articles and book chapters. Her work is featured in journals such as the "Review of Public Personal Administration," "Industrial Relations" and "Labor Law Journal." \nAs a result of winning this award, Bingham learned a great deal about Willoughby Abner -- the man who developed alternative dispute-resolution -- which she said was one of the most rewarding aspect of receiving such an award. Jascourt said Bingham displays the same passionate qualities towards dispute-resolution as Abner did.\n"Her enthusiasm is contagious, and I think that will help in terms of getting other people to do the same thing she exhibits," Jascourt said.\nBusiness professor Steven Hayford has worked closely with Bingham developing theories on dispute resolution. \n"Lisa is a fine example of a scholar/practitioner," Hayford said, "who has given her best in the classroom and the real world for us all"